Interact with the hotspots below to learn more.

Lightning Towers

Surrounding the launch pad at Cape Canaveral are four
lightning towers, each more than 300 feet tall. Given that Central Florida is
one of the most active regions in the world when it comes to lightning strikes,
NASA has always built lightning towers around launch pads. Grounded wires
direct any lightning strikes harmlessly into the ground.

A Cosmic Event

The Atlas V 551 rocket has a certain mass limit, and the margin for error is slim.

Mass Budget

A rocket like the Atlas V 551 can only carry so much mass
into space. As engineers plan the mission, they have to follow a tight budget
for the spacecraft’s load, which includes propellant, science instruments, and
communication antennas.

Ready to Fly

Juno has to launch within a tight window in time to reach Jupiter on schedule.

When do we depart?

To get to Jupiter, Juno has to launch when the planets are
aligned properly, which happens only between August 5th and August 26th. If
Juno misses this period, it has to wait another 13 months for the planets to
align again. Each day during these three weeks there’s a launch window of only
a few hours around noon Eastern Time.